[Broco]

I think everybody agrees the tendency system is a failure. It won't come back in Dark Souls.

[Broco]

Hmm, I'm a little surprised I have to defend this; I love Demon's Souls but that doesn't mean some parts of it aren't failed experiments, this being the most obvious example (the Old Monk fight, which almost never works as it's supposed to, is another). I think world tendency could be pretty sweet if levels' lighting looked noticeably different and if monsters looked friendlier or tougher, which I imagine was the original idea behind it. As it is though, it's a largely undeveloped, arbitrary, semi-irreversible, abstracted lock-and-key mechanism and just about every aspect of it is poorly explained or incomplete. It causes a lot more worry and confusion than it does satisfaction.

[Broco]

[Broco]

Well, you say that, but I bet you ended up trying similar exploits yourself though right? That's the problem with your thinking. I do think it's From's job to predict what players will actually do with the things they put in the game and not work off some idealized principle. I'm not asking them to be Valve (god no), but still.

You can call it pathological gamer psychology or whatever, but it's hard not to when you hear about it. Everybody is asking questions about this system, some people say you ideally need to start manipulating it from the beginning of the game, and you don't know whether or not you'll be screwed out of important weapons if you don't pay attention. The whole weapon development system encourages this kind of careful manipulation of systems.

One thing I agree they did do right is not hide anything too amazing or crucial behind the tendency system, which is why it's possible to ignore it and not get too annoyed at what you missed (and, to be fair, I didn't get that pissed off at it while I was playing). It's hard to know that in advance, though, and at least some build-specific good stuff is behind it, so it still provokes some anxiety and confusion and attempts at manipulation.

[Broco]

[Broco]

OK, I misunderstood you, I thought you were arguing there that the world tendency system was part of the skills you were supposed to bolster.

I'm aware of the intent, I think we just place different emphases on intent versus game-as-played-in-practice. I don't believe in drawing a line in the sand like, this is the designer's part of the experience and this is the player's. It's a tight, indivisible loop where each side is constantly engaged in predicting the behavior of the other. The player wants to progress and gain advantages over the game through whatever means he experiences or learns about, and the designer knows this and places steadily increasing obstacles that are the logical continuation of previous elements or explicitly subvert them. When some part of this delicate cycle goes awry and leads to unsatisfying gameplay -- an incentive or obstacle leads to tedium or frustration -- it's a shared responsibility.

[Broco]

[Broco]

[Broco]

[Broco]

The stats are scaled pretty high in the x-2 levels in NG+, so that might be your cup of tea.

[Broco]

Pretty sure he's off his rocker. Those claims haven't been documented in any FAQ I've seen.

The main reason they exist is to provide souls that you can keep even when you die, making failed runs not feel like a complete waste. They're designed to keep up player motivation during Souls' die-die-try-again flow.

[Broco]

Pure Black Scirvir is surprisingly badass, I ended up cheesing him from a distance with arrows after getting burnt to a crisp by him a couple of times.

[Broco]

Yeah, all NPC black phantoms drop a Black Eye Stone if you don't already have one.

[Broco]

Server issues probably. Co-op sessions end when you kill the boss.

[Broco]

[Broco]

I just run down the stairs straight past those beam guys. I only kill the first one as he's in your way. The others aren't really in the way, so you can just run past them and their beam takes long enough to charge up that they don't hit you. I also don't bother killing the second reaper, I head right for the exit. Speedrunning tactics tend to be pretty effective in both Souls games; they're often not any harder to master than killing everybody.

[Broco]

Well, you had been building up regen equipment already, so you were unusually well set up to deal with the poison. That and fighting the giant goblins on swamp are the hard parts of 5-2.

[Broco]

If Patches is only aggroed and not dead, the Meph quest probably still works with him. Although it may be a hassle to have an angry Patches following you around the Nexus all the time.

[Broco]

I think the unified world in Dark paradoxically gives that game a more fragmented feel in some ways. In Dark Souls, you can whipsaw through wildly different landscapes within a couple of minutes of walking; it's a bit absurd. The Metrovanias do the same thing, but justify it with "craaaazy chaotic castle". In Dark Souls there's no such reason and it's subtly jarring the whole game. I don't know what they could've done better though -- I don't want everything to look samey either -- it's just kind of a fundamental problem with the unified world.

In Demon's on the other hand, they're extremely cautious about progressing naturally through landscapes within the confines of an archstone. The beginning of the -2 stages generally look similar to the previous one, and then you enter an environment that's different/scarier, but a logical progression from what came before.

[Broco]

[Broco]

[Broco]

Nah, that's exactly right.

[Broco]

[Broco]

Binded Cross is a hell of a lot easier to obtain than Old King's so that's a point in favor of rolling a female character (that said, Old King's has a bit better stats if/when you do get it).